Joanne Massey is the controller for Sundance Square, the renowned Fort Worth property management firm owned by the Bass family that controls 35 city blocks of the city’s downtown core, including numerous historic buildings, and is considered one of America’s most successful urban revitalization efforts.  But her interest in cool stuff from the past doesn’t end when she leaves the office. In her free time, Joanne and her husband Robert enjoy shooting vintage lever action guns – “the kind that cowboys used to shoot” – in Cowboy Silhouette competitions. She’s reached the AAA level in many of the competition categories, which is no surprise when you learn that she’s a former national-caliber archery athlete. She got into Cowboy Silhouette after reconnecting with her husband, a college sweetheart whom she married four years ago. He was attending competitive rifle and shotgun events, so she tagged along. The Omaha native is also an avid golfer who hits the course several times a month. “I won’t go and just sit, that’s too boring,” she told us. While attending college at Texas Christian University, she was the top female collegiate archer in the state of Texas, and ranked in the top 10 nationally. Though the U.S. team selection process for the 1980 Olympic Games didn’t go in her favor, she has fond memories of her archery days. Joanne is also right on target with her career at Sundance Square, where she rose up through the Bass corporate accounting office to head up the accounting team for Sundance and oversee numerous major software transitions. Her team initially ran two high-rise office towers, then merged with another Bass-owned operation to form Sundance Square that oversees all of the downtown properties. She loves her job. “Being in a property management office,...

This year’s Apartment Internet Marketing (AIM) conference, which concluded today in Phoenix, definitely put the “social” in social media by the sharing of information between hundreds of multifamily executives. Conference panelists included people across the gamut of the industry, including speakers from Yelp, apartmentratings.com, Google and many others. And we can’t leave out the stuffed monkey, named Bongo, who helped demonstrate what was probably the most important message conveyed here about launching a social marketing campaign: “Keep it simple (stupid).” Here are five other take-aways from AIM 2012. Make social media easy (and fun!) for your residents or prospects. If you want engagement on your sites, you have to make it easy for people to participate. Have lots of calls to action. And make the campaign something that they would actually participate in, such as entertaining videos, funny pictures, and giveaways. People are suckers for free stuff (case in point: all the cool AIM swag I have safely squirreled away in my luggage.) Go topless (AKA: get their attention). One speaker mentioned the new Mini Cooper campaign, which was set up as a peep show because the new car (a convertible) was “going topless.” That definitely got everyone’s attention, and is sure to stick with people. When you’re starting a new campaign, make sure you are original and you grab people’s attention. If not, your campaign is in danger of disappearing in the white noise of the million other apartment community campaigns out there. Ratings and reviews are a good thing. Even if they’re bad. Everyone rates everything online. Hotels, restaurants, apartment communities… Make sure you’re monitoring all the talk about your property. And respond! Residents want to know they have a voice, and that you’re listening. Just know when it is more appropriate...

Lucy Billingsley’s distinguished career in real estate development ranks her among the nation’s leading female industry executives.  In the fourth decade of her career, she maintains great passion for the next project to command her attention. “My favorite deal is always the next one,” she told us during a recent interview. Billingsley Company, the Dallas-based company with land, office space, industrial, retail, single-family, multi-family, mixed-use and master-planned developments that she and her husband Henry founded in 1978, is flourishing. New phases of 10,000 unit master-planned rental communities The Neighborhoods of Austin Ranch and Cypress Waters are currently underway, and Billingsley is excited about changing the face of the multifamily experience. The company is also expanding its office and industrial holdings. Billingsley also devotes much of her time and energy to charitable work, and her philanthropy has included The Chiapas Project, Grameen Foundation USA, Women for Women International, National Geographic Society Council of Advisors, World Affairs Council (Dallas), Brain and Creativity Institute at USC, Council of Foreign Relations, The Hockaday School, and The Hunter and Stephanie Hunt Institute for Engineering and Humanity Advisory Board. In a short conversation, she filled us in on few views of the current marketplace, how she chooses philanthropic causes, and the lessons that her father, famed developer Trammel Crow, imparted to her. TBS: It’s been a challenging climate for real estate sales, investment and development over the last several years, although Texas come through the down economy very strongly. What do you see as the most pivotal focal points for property executives as the financial climate nationally continues to improve? LB: I think the multifamily world is a world that has made a significant and permanent shift in its role in America today – the shift is because the American...

Yvonne A. Jones has had a long and accomplished career in commercial real estate. Currently Managing Director of Asset and Property Management at Chicago-based McCaffery Interests, Inc., she’s also serving as President-Elect at IREM Chicago, Chapter 23. Recently The Balance Sheet had the chance to talk to Jones about her new foray into the residential sector, which is new for her. She spent almost nine years focused on the management, leasing, acquisition, disposition, and financing of commercial real estate assets at Zifkin Realty Group, LLC. At McCaffery, she’s overseeing mixed-used projects like the Roosevelt Collection in Chicago’s South Loop, which the company acquired in June of 2011. (The development was initially constructed in 2007 by Centrum Properties.) McCaffery is changing the layout of the project’s 440,000 square feet of retail space and creating a vibrant community mixed use space for residents and shoppers to enjoy. The shopping center is anchored by the popular Kerasotes ShowPlace movie theater, one of the nation’s top three theaters. Dan McCaffery, CEO of McCaffery Interests, is considered an industry and market leader in creating Class A living experience for residents of his company’s multifamily properties. His early projects, like The Bernardin, reflect a unique concept of high-end luxury living that residents adore. “His idea and his concept at the time was to really bring the hotel experience to the apartment home community,” Jones said. “I think when you look at what he designed at the Bernardin and Flair (Tower) and what he’s done at The Morgan, his focus is really on making these communities a place people want to come home to, where they get that hotel service and quality. Everything we do is really about creating that experience, making people feel like they’re walking into that beautiful hotel...

The Texas Apartment Association (TAA) has been an advocate for the rental housing industry for decades.  They are also hard at work shaping the future of the industry, and developing the talent of new potential hires, through the TAA Education Foundation (TAAEF). The program started 10 years ago in response to an industry-wide need for qualified candidates to fill available positions.  Today TAAEF is focused on supporting formalized training in residential property management (RPM) at all academic levels in higher education and on attracting disciplined talent to our industry, particularly from the military sector. The Foundation’s flagship program at the University of North Texas in Denton includes a fully funded, industry-sponsored permanently endowed professorship at UNT to attract and educate top talent that could enter the profession at – or quickly advance to – the middle management or executive ranks in the industry. TAAEF has also recently provided support for the new University of Houston Graduate Real Estate Program and has been instrumental in the development of a multifamily curriculum. TAAEF also works with community colleges throughout the state to have leasing and maintenance programs available. Austin Community College is the latest to offer a new leasing course. Overarching program objectives include: Supporting the rental housing industry with formal training offerings in residential property management for current and prospective employees. Programs are offered at Texas universities, colleges and community colleges. Promoting careers and advancement opportunities in the rental housing industry. Identify and consider funding for industry education and career-oriented resources benefiting rental housing owners and operators. In addition to its collegiate partnerships, TAAEF also works diligently to raise awareness of the multifamily industry’s many career offerings. As part of that effort, TAA partnered with Time Warner Cable and ApartmentCareers.com to create “Home Sweet Home: Career...

Construction of new apartment stock is booming again in America, and with that growth comes jobs. When new properties are completed, new apartment industry employment opportunities are created. We talked with John Cullens, President and Founder of ApartmentCareers.com, about what’s on the horizon for apartment industry careers. Filling the backlog of development that built up during the economic downturn has construction booming now, and that’s good news for job seekers. “The job growth we’re going to see because of new development that has to happen is going to have our industry grow somewhere in the 20 to 25 percent range in the next 8 years,” Cullens said. “We had a lot of units that needed to be added to the mix.” But the tasks those new hires may be asked to take on could be slightly different from the old industry standards. “We’ve really started to see some shifts in the type of people that are getting hired, especially in some of the newer product.  Gone are the days of the assistant manager/bookkeeper position –  those tasks are now able to be done in an easier, centralized manner. We’re seeing more and more of a focus on the service side of our industry. How are you going to separate and differentiate your product by value added services that residents want? The best way is to have staff on site to provide those services,” Cullens said. Other trends Cullens has identified through his 12-year-old website and extensive contacts with industry insiders include: –Growth in professional marketing positions. “Most people are embracing social media in some form or fashion and realizing that content based advertising and marketing is a way to get your name out there and have people look at you, and build some community...

There’s so much talk in the property management industry right now about the future of leasing that we wanted to dive deep into the topic with the help of Steve Lefkovits, Executive Producer of the Apartment Internet Marketing Conference coming up in Arizona next month. Steve is the author of this interesting piece in this month’s Units magazine called Customers as Kings. He agreed to answer some trending questions from us on the apartment industry’s next big thing: marketing and leasing that’s online, mobile and more efficient than ever. TBS: What do you think is more important – mobile friendly property websites or mobile specific apps, and do you need to create both? SL: I think that mobile web sites are more important for attracting residents and mobile apps have more possibilities for long-term engagement with existing renters.  Right now 10-20% of web page views during a search come from mobile devices. Some property management companies report even more, depending on how they’re optimizing their lead flow and how many touchpoints they have.  It’s obvious that few people are going to install an app in the middle of their search, their far more likely to use their phones on the fly as part of the search.  On the other hand, the possibilities are endless for meaningful engagement in a property-level application.  The easy things to think of relate just to the property – paying rent, maintenance requests and tracking packages.  I think smart companies are going to start focusing more on lifestyle elements in an app that encourage healthy living and neighborhood engagement.  If I built an apartment app today it would have neighborhood services and discounts, recipes, exercise information, attractions and events, holiday information and some type of game that made it fun. ...

As an industry leader in sustainable development, Portland-based Yardi client Gerding Edlen is a step ahead when it comes to earth-friendly trends in apartment living. “Because we have such a passion for developing sustainable buildings, we wanted to ensure we were transferring the vision we have during development into the day to day management of the properties,” says Julia Razonable, Gerding Edlen Management’s Director of Operations. “One of the next ways to push the boundary in sustainability is to influence human behavior,” Julia explained. Gerding Edlen is dedicated to creating communities in its multifamily developments, fostering interaction between residents and providing a sense of attachment to the neighborhood beyond the property as well. The idea is to give people the environment and tools to live healthier, more-earth friendly lives. A recent event at one of their Portland communities, Cocktails and Compost, brought 100 residents together for drinks, distribution of compost bins, and a tutorial on how to compost at home. Portland has a citywide mandate for single family homes to compost their natural food and yard waste, and Gerding Edlen is fostering that adoption in multifamily complexes, too. “It was also our first zero waste event,” Julia mentioned. “All of the cups, plates, and napkins we used could be composted.” Julia, who studied sociology and psychology at Portland State University, says that sharing information and social connections between residents is very important. Each of the apartment communities she oversees has its own blog and Facebook page, where conversations range from when and where to find the next neighborhood farmer’s market to how to clean in a more environmentally friendly way. Well-developed social media networks have helped Gerding Edlen’s advertising outreach approach go green, too. The company also focuses great attention on the concept of...

Taking a progressive approach to customer service was a paramount topic at this year’s MFE Executive Leadership Summit. In a panel session lead by representatives of Riverstone, AIMCO, Simpson, Cirrus, and CompassRock, the conversation always seemed to come back to creating a positive resident experience from the first time prospects visit a property site to the moment they renew their lease. Though a strong apartment-renting economy continues to pick up steam, managing potential tenant impressions is still an extremely valuable business practice. An overriding theme of the conference was the dramatic effect of social technology and communication on multifamily communities.  Customer service opportunities are everywhere on the Internet, from ApartmentRatings.com to Facebook and Yelp, and how property professionals manage that interaction, be it with future, current, or former residents, is now a defining factor in apartment community success. Other conference highlights included: -A significant amount of private equity has been sitting on the sidelines during the economic downturn, and as investors realize that the multifamily assets are safe investments, that equity is once again flowing into the market.  Investors are digging deeper and and looking for reputable companies in which to invest their capital. -New construction is strong, especially  in the core coastal markets.  Structure style selection based on the demographic and geographic profiles of the area is important, many panelists agreeing that there is a new emphasis on urban style buildings and settings with more common/social space.  Developers must create creative living spaces with  integrated technology features, something that new generations of residents expect. -Comparisons were made to the travel industry and the importance of providing self-serve technology such as online leasing, lease renewal, and utility billing to residents. Panel members were quick to point out that one of the most productive forms...

Multifamily goes to Washington for the Capitol Conference this week, March 11 – 14. The National Apartment Association hosts this four day conference to allow the apartment industry to meet their members of Congress face-to-face and discuss how federal legislation could impact them and their businesses. This year’s theme is “Maximizing Our Advocacy ROI.” The premise is that investing your time to educate Congress on issues that affect our industry will bring benefits to your business as well as the national apartment industry. Donna Brazille and Dana Perino are sure to host a lively discussion during the Conference Kickoff on Monday morning. Follow the action using the official hashtag #CapCon.  The schedule is packed full of options for you to fit your niche, including affordable, independent, and military events. It’s too late to register online but you can print the registration form on their website and bring it with you to the registration desk onsite. 10 Things I Learned from My First NAA Capitol...